


Priceless

by ImhereImQuire



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Dehumanisation, Gen, Objectification, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 19:38:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImhereImQuire/pseuds/ImhereImQuire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post ADWD: After Yezzan dies Sweets is being sold on, and Tyrion can't bear to see it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Auction

His mouth often got him into unenviable situations, and this was just one more.  He was without a doubt the best negotiator of the entire company, and while he would never make a soldier his tongue was solid gold and so, when they needed to acquire new weapons and armour it was he who was immediately named for the task of purchasing them, which would have been a thing he would have doubtlessly enjoyed were it not for the fact that the traders of weapons were located behind the slave markets.

The place was still one of nightmares for Tyrion, but he refused to let it have power over him. The Second Sons needed weapons, and so to get to them he needed to go do this; to endure the sounds of the flesh trade; the calls of auctioneers, cracked whips, human suffering and greed which sickened his stomach and made his hand raise instinctively to his throat for the reassurance that it remained bare. The Dragon Queen would put a stop to all of this, he told himself as he walked every bit as fast as his sore legs would take him; she was intent on freeing the world, it was said, and he aimed to help her do it, but for that he needed to find weapon  and to win the company of the Second Sons to her cause.

“This one is the final lot from the estate, and the finest.  A creature of no small renown; trained in the arts of pleasure in the infamous _‘Silver Orchid’_ house of Lys, purple eyed, silver haired and possessing parts female and male-”

Tyrion froze at that. _Sweets_. Oh gods’ sakes, he thought to himself. It couldn’t be, could it? But what were the odds of there being another so endowed?

“with both in full working order, coming onto the market fully compliant, virtually unmarked and in perfect health. We have already received several prior bids by prior reputation alone. A once in a lifetime find, ladies and gentlemen, we start the bidding at eighteen hundred to reflect previous bids.”

Tyrion turned but he couldn’t see through the throng of the crowd.

“Two thousand,” came a woman’s voice immediately.

“I haven’t opened!” laughed the auctioneer, rolling his eyes in mock exasperation.

“Two thousand, two hundred,” came another call bellowed from a man off to the side.

“Two thousand, eight hundred…. Subject to demonstration.”  came a third voice, and when he heard the jeering and hooting that this got, Tyrion’s resolve broke and he began to move through the crowd.

By the time that Tyrion had pushed his way through the crowd enough to see the stage, Sweets was stripped naked but for a pair of sandals. No, he realised as he looked on. There was no clothing upon the ground, nothing to suggest that she had not started out that way,  a thing which disgusted but did not surprise him. What surprises him was the way that she held herself together, her chin tilted upward, staring out at the crowd even as her legs were kicked apart, her hands remaining clasped behind her back as she was manhandled; her small breasts squeezed with rough hands, her most valued parts stretched and pulled upon. Her eyes were cold but not dead, and there was a fierce dignity to her which reminded him of Cersei as she sat through one or another of Robert’s drunken idiocies, though he doubted his sweet sister would be flattered by the comparison. He thought he’d had seen the worst of it, hearing the bids coming thick and fast as Sweets was bent across a wooden bar but then the auctioneer produced a thick wooden rod and thrust it between her legs and Tyrion felt like to be sick.

“Three thousand,” he shouted as he held up a hand, unable to look anymore. He seemed to be the only one so troubled; the crowd surged behind him and he was swept forward with it, only the staff he carried for dealing with such a crush stopping him from ending up in the dust.

By the time he had recovered himself the bidding had jumped to six thousand, the display enough to attract another two bidders, neither of whom seemed to like the idea of losing. The second sons were going to kill him, he thought to himself. “Six thousand five hundred” he called.

“Seven thousand” came a call immediately.

It was too much, Tyrion thought to himself, but then he heard the low, pained hiss from the stage as the auctioneer continued to push and prod and he couldn’t bear it. No one deserved this, he told himself. He would just have to negotiate the harder for the weapons. The silver could be found.

“Ten thousand” came another, before he could even speak and at that there was silence.

“Ten thousand. Ten thousand. Any more? Any more? One of a kind, ladies and gentlemen, and fair of face. Look at those fine features.”  Sweets’ hair was hurriedly tossed from her face, showing pain, and tears which she still refused to be broken into crying. Ten thousand… he would be strung up, and there was no guarantee that even that would be enough, that was the worst of it.

 “Valyrian blood or else my eyes may be torn from my head. Ten thousand is a bargain for such a treasure. Look at the colour of these eyes! Any more offers? Dwarf? How about you?”

Sweets’ eyes opened and appeared to focus upon him and a moment of recognition passed between them… and then she began to cough. And cough. And cough again; so hard that she began to retch, dangling from the bar across her stomach and clutching at her mouth and guts as though she were going to be sick.

The Bloody Mare had left grievous wounds in the flesh trade, and the fear of contamination was still rife. And as quickly as the bids had risen then began to drop away, leaving Tyrion ready to applaud her cleverness.

“You said it was in perfect health!” snapped the woman who had made the last bid. “Does that-” she pointed  as Sweets gagged and rattled as though she were plague ridden. “Sound in perfect health to you? Bid retracted!”

“It’s nothing-“ the auctioneer looked ready to throttle Sweets, whose cheeks had turned scarlet and feet were buckled. “Dust in the throat, that’s all… You, my friend in the orange..”

“Is that some jest? Bid retracted” the previous bidder turned and walked away without waiting for a response.

“Surely you’re still interested, dwarf?” the auctioneer wheedled, and it was the desire to deprive the man of as much as he possibly could which made Tyrion pause, pretending to think.

“My original bid was three thousand, and your other bidders have gone” he reminded the man. “Clothed and unmarked” he added, sure that Sweets would suffer for her sabotage otherwise.

The auctioneer looked frustrated, his jaw clenching as he surveyed the crowd, attempting to find any other interest and seeing none. “Going one-twice-and again and sold.” He snapped.  “Get it off my stage already” he directed his eunuch assistants.


	2. Collection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion realises that he now owns another person and regardless of his intention to free her he is more than a little horrified with himself.

_I have bought another person_ , he thought to himself, more than a little appalled as he passed over the papers promising silver from the Second Sons _. I own a human being now, according to the laws of this awful land_. It was baffling, and as he waited to have her brought to him he could not help but feel more than slightly self-conscious. He could not shake the feeling that one of the dozen or so people milling about the tent was judging him for this, and he kept expecting to see some pointed finger, or shaken head, or filthy look. He was a repulsive monster purchasing an exotic bed slave and nobody else seemed to give it a second thought.

“Lot 207?” asked a surprisingly pleasant young man. It took a few moments before Tyrion connected the number to anything requiring his attention and deigned to look up.

Sweets was already studying him, her face a carefully controlled blank. She’s trying to decide if she can trust me, he thought to himself, feeling more than a little wounded. He had assumed the shared experience of captivity might have made his intentions toward her clear, but the look upon her face said that she still hadn’t decided whether he intended to liberate or defile her and he had to resist the urge to proclaim his innocence, to tell her immediately that she was being rescued. He got the impression that buying slaves with the sole intention of seeing them freed would be… frowned upon though and so there seemed no option but to play the part of slaver until he had gotten her away from the tent.

“Unchain her.” he ordered with a gesture to her wrists, unable to even meet her eyes; too ashamed by the knowledge that he had bought her. She would hate him for this, he was certain. Even when he gave her freedom afterward he would still be a man who had owned her in her mind and she was bound to resent him for it.

He’d told them to dress her, but he hadn’t specified how and the clothing that she wore was of the style common to bedslaves;  two triangles of fabric tied together to form a rough skirt which fell between rather than over her thighs and a vest which was more harness than bodice, the linen crossing between her high, firm little breasts rather than concealing them, and when her wrists were released from their chains she rubbed at them briefly, before letting them fall to her side, making no attempt to cover herself.

 The lack of modesty did not seem to embarrass her, but he same could not be said of him. Tyrion was no green boy and been inside many a brothel where the girls wore less he still found himself growing scarlet; avoiding her gaze made it impossible not to stare at the curve of legs, the rose pink of her exposed nipples… which was the idea of such an outfit, but not one that he was comfortable with and discomfort became utter revulsion at the sight of the dried blood upon her skirt, a trail of rust running a fine line in the valley between her the valley of thighs.

 _She’s a slave_ , he thought to himself, disgusted at how distracting he’d found her body.  A slave he had seen violated before him only hours ago, no less _. I should not be_ _looking at her like this._ He recalled the bedslave from Selhorys, and the death in her eyes. He had been able to excuse that as an act of drunken thoughtlessness, that he had been ignorant of the grim truth of the flesh trade… not an excuse he had the luxury of now. _Everything they have ever said about me is true_ , he thought miserably. _I am truly a monster now._

He turned and began to walk away, unable to stand looking at her a single moment more. “Let’s get out of here, Sweets” he muttered, pinching what precious little remained of his nose.


End file.
